Error when building wheels on Linux FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'ninja'`

The error occurs during wheel building when scikit-build-core tries to find the 'ninja' program. Look at the Dockerfile or build environment to ensure ninja is installed. Check the project's build dependencies in pyproject.toml or setup.py. The fix likely involves adding ninja to the system packages before pip install. Verify by running a minimal Docker build that installs ninja-build and then attempts the pip install.

Prerequisites

Please answer the following questions for yourself before submitting an issue.

• I am running the latest code. Development is very rapid so there are no tagged versions as of now.
• I carefully followed the README.md.
• I searched using keywords relevant to my issue to make sure that I am creating a new issue that is not already open (or closed).
• I reviewed the Discussions, and have a new bug or useful enhancement to share.

Expected Behavior

Please provide a detailed written description of what you were trying to do, and what you expected llama-cpp-python to do.

Current Behavior

Building wheels results in error logs (see below).

Environment and Context

• Docker file, building from ubuntu:jammy
• llama-cpp-python versions tested 0.2.88 and 0.3.2. Behavior consistent.
• Note that I'm still able to build from source directly on my MacOS, so it might be something specific to Linux

Failure Information (for bugs)

I'm unable to build wheels for llama-cpp-python in an ubuntu:jammy base Docker image. I get the error: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'ninja'.

Please help provide information about the failure if this is a bug. If it is not a bug, please remove the rest of this template.

Steps to Reproduce

Please provide detailed steps for reproducing the issue. We are not sitting in front of your screen, so the more detail the better.

1. git clone git@github.com:khoj-ai/khoj.git
2. cd khoj && docker build .

You should see the same error reproduced

Failure Logs

0 54.02
#0 54.02   × Building wheel for llama-cpp-python (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
#0 54.02   │ exit code: 1
#0 54.02   ╰─> [34 lines of output]
#0 54.02       *** scikit-build-core 0.10.7 using CMake 3.31.1 (wheel)
#0 54.02       *** Configuring CMake...
#0 54.02       Traceback (most recent call last):
#0 54.02         File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/pep517/in_process/_in_process.py", line 363, in <module>
#0 54.02           main()
#0 54.02         File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/pep517/in_process/_in_process.py", line 345, in main
#0 54.02           json_out['return_val'] = hook(**hook_input['kwargs'])
#0 54.02         File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/pep517/in_process/_in_process.py", line 261, in build_wheel
#0 54.02           return _build_backend().build_wheel(wheel_directory, config_settings,
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/build/__init__.py", line 33, in build_wheel
#0 54.02           return _build_wheel_impl(
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/build/wheel.py", line 175, in _build_wheel_impl
#0 54.02           return _build_wheel_impl_impl(
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/build/wheel.py", line 402, in _build_wheel_impl_impl
#0 54.02           builder.configure(
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/builder/builder.py", line 166, in configure
#0 54.02           local_def = set_environment_for_gen(
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/builder/generator.py", line 121, in set_environment_for_gen
#0 54.02           ninja = best_program(get_ninja_programs(), version=ninja_settings.version)
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/program_search.py", line 169, in best_program
#0 54.02           for program in programs:
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/program_search.py", line 136, in get_ninja_programs
#0 54.02           result = Run().capture(ninja_path, "--version")
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/_shutil.py", line 43, in capture
#0 54.02           return self._run(args, capture=True)
#0 54.02         File "/tmp/pip-build-env-gvxo9xjm/overlay/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/scikit_build_core/_shutil.py", line 71, in _run
#0 54.02           return subprocess.run(
#0 54.02         File "/usr/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 503, in run
#0 54.02           with Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs) as process:
#0 54.02         File "/usr/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 971, in __init__
#0 54.02           self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
#0 54.02         File "/usr/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 1863, in _execute_child
#0 54.02           raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)
#0 54.02       FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'ninja'
#0 54.02       [end of output]
#0 54.02
#0 54.02   note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
#0 54.02   ERROR: Failed building wheel for llama-cpp-python
#0 54.02   Building wheel for openai-whisper (pyproject.toml): started
#0 54.25   Building wheel for openai-whisper (pyproject.toml): finished with status 'done'
#0 54.25   Created wheel for openai-whisper: filename=openai_whisper-20240930-py3-none-any.whl size=803338 sha256=3fe6a790d061e0fd0fb7f67fab76b6662233ee67d68b41f45ba25df64f21df59
#0 54.25   Stored in directory: /tmp/pip-ephem-wheel-cache-y4xjqtu_/wheels/dd/4a/1f/d1c4bf3b9133c8168fe617ed979cab7b14fe381d059ffb9d83
#0 54.25 Successfully built khoj docx2txt openai-whisper
#0 54.26 ERROR: Could not build wheels for llama-cpp-python, which is required to install pyproject.toml-based projects
#0 54.26 Failed to build llama-cpp-python
------

Here's the pyproject.toml it's using to build: link.

You can see the full error logs in the GitHub Action workflow.

I noticed the ninja project had a release recently, but the error is still consistent if I downgrade ninja to 1.11.1.1.

Our workflow has been running smoothly, and this is the first time we encountered the error (about two hours ago, ~1:00 PM PST). Any help is much appreciated 🙏🏾.